


So Much More Than Destiny

by Strange_johnlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Destiny, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Homophobic Language, Humor, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, John Watson's father is a homophobic arsehole, M/M, Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, not John or Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29876172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strange_johnlock/pseuds/Strange_johnlock
Summary: Maybe, Sherlock's soulmate had died young. Or he just didn’t get assigned one – a freak of nature.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 89
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Z_S64](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Z_S64/gifts).



> Thank you, Amelia, for beta reading. I appreciate your help so much <3

** Chapter 1 **

The SMA (Soulmate Association) was formed in the 1950s to prevent families from falling apart after, due to the mother or father finding their soulmate and leaving their partner. Collecting the data at birth, people could request a letter with their soulmate's name and address on their eighteenth birthday so they could get in contact with them. By the time Sherlock Holmes was born, the SMA had been so integrated into society that every person in the UK- and most other countries in the world – got their letter.

He remembered Mycroft getting his letter. His brother had smiled, cheeks dusted with pink, and showed Sherlock where it said that his soulmate's Name was Gregory Lestrade and that he would be allowed to contact him in two years when Greg turned eighteen as well. Sherlock idly wondered if his soulmate would be male, too.

Beth, the only person he would have considered a friend in grammar school, got her letter and moved to South Africa two months later to be with her soulmate. He was surprised to find that he missed her. He hoped his soulmate would live in London, or New York, or Berlin, somewhere that wasn’t this boring, little Sussex town.

Trey, the only other boy everyone avoided, who wore torn jeans and had the biggest pair of glasses, met his soulmate Lilly, and Sherlock watched them walk through the park day after day, hand in hand, smiling. He hoped that he would have a soulmate too, even though everyone thought he was a freak.

Sherlock’s letter never came. He waited for it days after his birthday, hoping there had just been a delay with postal services. After a week, he gave up. SMA letters were never late. Some people just didn’t get them. Maybe, his soulmate had died young. Or he just didn’t get assigned one – a freak of nature.

He tried not to care. He moved to London, went to Uni, he had bad days, later, Sebastian introduced him to cocaine – and thought maybe it was his soulmate. After rehab, he established himself in London again. There, he met John. Wonderful, loyal, funny John Watson, who helped on cases and made him tea and didn’t think Sherlock was a freak.

John didn’t have a soulmate either. They never talked about it, but they both knew. Sherlock thought that maybe there wasn’t just anyone good enough for John. Secretly, he was glad he didn’t have to share his friend with anyone.

And then John kissed him.

His lips were warm and wet from the rain, and Sherlock buried his fingers in the fabric of his jacket and kissed back. Maybe he didn’t have a soulmate, but he had John, and John was perfect. Sherlock kissed him until the rain stopped, and when John pulled back, Sherlock followed his lips to reconnect them with his own. He felt John’s smile, and his small hands cupping his cheeks.

“Let’s go home,” John whispered. “We’re soaked to the bone.”

“I don’t think I can stop kissing you.”

John smiled even wider, mouth red and wet and kissable. “You can kiss me at home, love. As long as you want.”

And Sherlock intertwined their fingers and started running.

_____

“Do you mind?” Sherlock said into John’s hair. “That I’m not your soulmate?”

John pulled him closer against his chest, warm and soft against Sherlock’s naked skin. “I don’t give a fuck,” He said, and there was anger in his voice. “We don’t need a fucking SMA letter, do we? We still found each other.”

Sherlock kissed the spot just under John’s collar bone. John had a freckle there. He wondered how long it would take him to kiss every freckle on John’s body.

“Without a bloody letter,” John’s lips rested against Sherlock’s hair, his breath warm and steady.

“We’re clever,” Sherlock mumbled.

“We’re in love,” John trailed kisses down the bridge of his nose.

And they were. Their love was woven into the fabric of their shared life, it made good days brighter and bad days lighter, it is both Sherlock’s strength and greatest weakness. John, who has been his best friend for over a year now, who is part of the work, his conductor of light. John, who stroked his hair for hours, while Sherlock tried to sort the pieces of the most recent puzzle in his mind palace. John, who made love to him when both of them were still brimming with adrenaline after a successful case, and on slow mornings, the dim light coming through the curtains. John who loved him. John, whom he loved.

Who was to say they couldn’t be happy, even though destiny and genetic coding hadn’t allocated them with a partnered soul? They were not the first. They could be happy without a soulmate, with each other.

Sherlock was convinced of that. Without a doubt.

Until the letter came. 


	2. Chapter 2

SMA. The letters were delicate as if written by hand, printed onto the envelope in a dark red – the colour of love. Fourteen years too late, Sherlock held his letter in his hand. No mistake. It was addressed to William Sherlock Scott Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London.

Sherlock felt his hands shaking. For so long, he had hoped for this – secretly wished someone was waiting out there for him, so he wouldn’t be alone. 

Now, he had John, John was his best friend, his partner. And a single letter, currently held between shaking fingers, had the possibility to change what they had indefinitely.

His first instinct was to destroy it, throw it in the fireplace and distribute the ashes in the Thames, have the water carry it away. John would never need to know there was a letter, and Sherlock would never have to know what it said.

He hated not knowing. He felt that he would never sleep soundly without knowing who’s name was written in this letter, just hidden behind a paper seal. He had to know. He had to know and in knowing he would break both his, and even worse, John’s heart.

_ No going back. Rip the band-aid off. _

John’s footsteps in the hallway. Sherlock quickly hid the envelope under some of his casework on the desk. Stupid, to have forgotten, even for a moment, what day it was.

His boyfriend was dressed in black, and at any other moment, Sherlock might have noticed how well the colour suited him. But he was too distracted, and John’s face was filled with so much sadness and anger, already, that Sherlock just took a step towards him and closed his arms around him.

“You sure I shouldn’t come?” He whispered into John’s perfectly combed hair.

_ I don’t want to come. But I want to support you. _

“No, I think that’s a bad idea. My dad isn’t… wasn’t the only homophobic dick in my family. I want to avoid the drama. It’s going to be hard enough, already, to be seeing all of them. I don’t need a comment about my relationship from any of them.”

John pulled him closer for a moment.

“Will you be here, when I come home?”

“Of course.”

The _‘But we might not be the same by then. We aren't the same, anymore’_ remains unspoken.

“I don’t even know how to feel. There’s so much. I … haven’t talked to him for years. Haven’t wanted to. But now that he’s gone…” John let the words hang, muffled them into the fabric of Sherlock’s suit jacket. They remained there, long after John had left.

Sherlock watched him walk along Baker Street, in direction of the tube station, before he disappeared. The letter remained. 

Sherlock was aware of his presence. There was no way of ignoring it, no matter how much he tried. So, Sherlock investigated it. He took fingerprints, which was a difficult endeavour. And pointless, at that. So many of the staff at SAM and the postal service would have touched it. Mrs. Hudson too.

He did it anyway, finding only two distinguished prints for him to look at. He would, at Barts. Not today. Today, he needed to be home. For John

He weighed it. 19.3g. That suggested three DinA4 sheets of paper. SAM letters contained two, usually. 

He smelled it, distinguished the smells of the paper from those of London. No hints to the content, there.

It gave him something to do. It kept him from going mad. From thinking about what John would say. It wasn’t enough. He imagined John coming in through the kitchen door, the weight of the funeral heavy on his shoulders, how his face would go blank with shock. Oh, he would be so understanding. He would press his face into Sherlock’s hair, as he broke the seal and read the name. How he would kiss his forehead, and how Sherlock would love him even more and hate himself more for breaking his heart.

No one could resist their soulmate once they met them. So many had tried – and not only in literature had that ended in tragedy. He could try to avoid them, but when there was a destiny that created people for each other, it would have to make them meet, at one point? 

And could he do that to John? Make him stay by his side until one day he ran into a stranger and just – loved them?

No.

He refused. But that would mean, leaving him now. Today.

And that thought hurt. It carved its way from his brain, where it had formed, down his throat, into his heart, piercing every vital organ on its way and Sherlock slammed his hand against the kitchen wall as hard as he could. It broke the skin.

The physical pain was easier to deal with. The source was traceable. It was treatable. John would clean it out and put a band-aid on it, and he would kiss his forehead and call him an idiot for being so careless.

But John wouldn’t be there anymore. Sherlock had to let him go.


	3. Chapter 3

His fingers were trembling around the cigarette. He hadn’t taken a drag in almost ten minutes, just stared at the world, which was upside down – Sherlock was hanging off the bed, blood collecting in his head. This world was not the same anymore and Sherlock was the only one who knew. Yet. Soon, John would come home. Sherlock had never dreaded anything more. The idea numbed him, made him incapable to move. He hadn’t blinked in a while, the smoke burning in his eyes.

Time dragged on, only jumping into action when John’s key clicked in the lock downstairs. They met each other by the door to the kitchen. If this were one of John’s movies, they would be on an empty beach, the wind howling around them. In the real world, it was their own home that would become the battleground where they would fight for their love.

To his own shame, Sherlock felt like giving up, already. He forced himself to look at John, finding that the sadness had drained from the doctor’s face. Instead, there was an anger Sherlock hadn’t expected.

_I should ask what happened at the funeral. He just lost his father._

_I will only hurt him more._

He spotted the letter in John’s hand. Fine, red letters on the front. The seal had been broken. And John was angry. Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, squaring his shoulders. Anger he could deal with.

“Before I met you, I thought I was some kind of freak,” John said, looking to the floor before his eyes found Sherlock’s face. “I thought I was the only bloody person in the world who didn’t have a soulmate. Everyone had one. Even my bloody father found his. And then I met you, and I thought it wouldn’t matter. That I found you without any stupid piece of paper,”

That tiny hope, that John’s name was on the letter, died within Sherlock, his stomach tying into even tighter knots.

“John,” was the only word his throat could form. Those three steps between them felt like a mile, or ten, impossible to cross.

“I should have known.” John moved the letter between his fingers. “That it was all a lie.”

It was a kick to the guts.

 _We are more._ He wants to yell. _We are so much more_.

“You… said you didn’t care. That we weren’t…”

“I didn’t. I don’t,” The anger burned in John’s eyes, but it calmed his features into a mask, hiding the tempest storming below. The quiet danger of John Watson. How Sherlock loved it. How he loved him.

“But I bloody fucking care that he kept this from me.”

“He?” Sherlock looked at John, confused.

“Yes,” John pointed the letter in Sherlock’s direction. “My bloody, fucking, father. He took it. Opened it. Decided he didn’t like my bloody soulmate. And kept it from me. For twenty, fucking years. Because he’s a fucking homophobe. Thought one gay child was enough, probably. I want to punch him. I never fucking did, but I want to, now. He kept my bloody letter for me.”

_Not my letter._

_John’s letter._

“Harry found it in his drawer. She didn’t … look at the name. I didn’t look. God, Sherlock,” The anger was gone, from one moment to the next, giving way to worry.

“God, Sherlock. Sorry, I was so focused on… I didn’t even think… what it would mean. God, Sherlock.”

His knees felt like jelly, but Sherlock wouldn’t give destiny the satisfaction of dropping to the floor. His hand curled around the edge of the kitchen table so he could hold himself up.

_John has a soulmate._

“I… John.” What use were words, when they couldn’t describe this conglomerate of emotion, this rollercoaster only going down?

John was by his side in a moment, enveloped him against his chest. “It doesn’t change anything. I won’t let it. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long.” He whispered into Sherlock’s chest, the words not quite reaching him.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, solving crimes, complaining about the state of the kitchen, making love when you finally come to bed at three in the morning. No bloody letter can change that.” John cupped his face.

“Could two letters?”

John tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I got a letter in the mail today. Mrs. Hudson brought it up. I haven’t opened it yet. I … “

John’s face paled even more. “How... God, the universe is being extra cruel today, isn’t it?”

“We need to open them, John. We can’t …”

John’s lips were on his, the kiss almost brutal in its despair, teeth licking against each other, lips crushing together until they felt numb from the pressure. They clung to each other, their fingers curled in hair and suit jackets, tearing, wanting, needing.

Sherlock wanted to kiss him, until his entire world was reduced to John, taste, smell, feeling, sound.

“What, if it’s you?” John whispered into the small space between their lips, when they came up for air. He could barely take the hope in John’s dark eyes.

“What if it’s not?”

John’s arms tightened around him, lips tender against his neck.

“Marry me,” He said, pulling back to look at Sherlock. “Oh, no, don’t make that face, love. I mean it. I don’t care. I told you. I love you.”

Sherlock wanted to give in, to melt against John, to let him wash away all doubt with his words and his body, with his smile and his tender touches. He couldn’t.

“I know what you think, in your brilliant brain, Sherlock. But relationships end. That happens. And if you run into that person from your letter…”

“Soulmate.” Sherlock spat, making the words sound like a curse.

“Into your soulmate,” John stroked his thumb along the line of Sherlock’s jaw. “then we had a good life together. If… if there is a different name in that bloody letter, then they can bloody well enough wait their turn. “

Sherlock kissed him, softly this time. His wonderful John. Optimistic, loyal John.

“You can give me your answer,” John cupped his face in his hands. “And then we’ll open the letters. I love you.”

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded “I want that life with you, John. I will marry you.”

John’s face burst into a smile, eyes wet with tears. “Thank god.” He mumbled, pulling Sherlock tight.

They held each other for a long time, and Sherlock felt the knots in his stomach slowly loosen, his racing brain calmed by John’s presence alone.

And then, they couldn’t push it away any longer. Sitting on the sofa, thighs pressed together, they opened their envelopes.


	4. Chapter 4

_Dear Mr. Holmes,_

_ We are sorry to inform you that a mistake has been made on our behalf, concerning your soulmate. As you are well aware, you did not receive a letter on your 18th birthday, according to our records, they were deceased. _

_ How and why this happened is still being investigated. We now know, they had not died but signed up for the military. _

_ We are sure you have found your soulmate through their letter, but we are still deeply sorry for the inconvenience. _

_ You can find your letter on the following. _

Sherlock skipped over more excuses and turned to the second page. There, in the middle, printed in bold, red letters, he found the name of his soulmate.

__

_ JOHN HAMISH WATSON _

_ LONDON, UK _

Relief was a wave and Sherlock let himself be washed away.

"Hamish?" his voice was not his own. Sherlock had to force his eyes away from the paper to look at the man next to him.

John's letter lay in his lap, the word 'Faggot' sprawled across the print in what must be John's father's writing. He flinched, reaching a comforting hand out to close around John's.

"William, ey?"

They burst into relieved laughter.

\---

It took a few days to sink in. Nights of too little sleep spent making sure that John was still in the bed beside him, days of opening his eyes for more than a few minutes to eat what John brought him.

shock, he realized. He was still suffering from the aftermath.

He couldn't help but feel regret. Had his letter come, had John's father not be an arsehole, so many things would have been different.

No overdose. No Rehab. No relapse. No second attempt.

But then, there would have been no running into John at Barts, no shot cabbie, no first kiss in the rain.

He was lucky, really, to have found his John beyond the millions of people in London. To have fallen in love without any pressure from the SMA.

To have John puttering in the kitchen right now, humming a song.

Sherlock got out of bed and crossed the hall, to wrap himself around John's back.

"Well hello," John's playful voice was drenched with relief. He had worried those past days. And Sherlock knew just how to make him feel better.

"Come to bed," he breathes against John's neck, pressing a kiss to the spot.

A chuckle made John's body rumble, as he turned in Sherlock's arms.

"you know you still have to marry me, right?"

"John. May I remind you that those promises were made in a situation of utter distress..."

John just kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the wonderful Zeph, who provided me with the idea for this fic. It was so much fun writing it <3


End file.
